


windowpane

by synecdochic



Series: take these broken wings [8]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Aftermath, Imported, M/M, Physical Disability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-06
Updated: 2009-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-30 17:42:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6434140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synecdochic/pseuds/synecdochic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In their bedroom, after the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	windowpane

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally [posted](https://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/307215.html) 2009-02-06.)
> 
> Set post- _Howling_ , at some undefined spot parallell to _Roll With It_.

****

i.

JD used to sleep all sprawled out and open, taking up way more space than he had a right to, like sharing a bed with a pushy oversized cat. Cam had missed it during the long weeks and months JD had been away in Seattle -- he'd always grumbled about never being able to sleep the night through in peace but the bed was too large for one person alone, and he'd always known JD fell asleep after he did, sometimes much after, but not having JD there at all had been so much different than having a JD quietly pretending to sleep at the same times he did and instead only using the opportunity to soak up as much time possible with skin against skin. Now, though. Things have changed. (So many things.) JD's sleeping eight, ten hours a night, and anyone else, Cam'd call that normal, but JD's never been anyone else and this isn't. Normal, he means. JD's looking pale and parchment-thin, under the eyes mostly, and he's yawning every night by twenty-two hundred and practically wilting by twenty-three. And he's always been shit at admitting he needs to take care of himself, so Cam's been playing like he's more tired than he lets on, declaring it bedtime as soon as he thinks JD'll come follow and brushing his teeth and climbing into bed. He knows JD sees straight through him but JD comes along anyway, climbs in next to Cam and tucks himself under layers and levels of sheets and afghans, and that's a sign something's changed too, because he never used to sleep under anything more than a single thin sheet. It's Cam's turn to lie awake in the darkness, listening to the sound of JD's even breathing and tracing with his eyes the knobby lines of JD's spine presented to him from where JD's curled up like a baby up against the edge of the bed. Doesn't feel like JD's trying to hold himself distant from Cam, not the way someone else might. Feels like JD's trying to keep himself from getting too close, because (Cam knows) he's the one good thing in JD's life right now, and JD's trying to keep himself from breaking it.

 

****

ii.

Cam's first bad pain day after JD returns has him gritting his teeth and smiling straight through them, pretending that everything is fine, fine, fine, because he doesn't want JD to notice it, because he doesn't want JD to worry. JD's got enough fucking shit of his own to deal with without having to put up with Cam snarling and growling and raging at the universe over the fact that his hip joints feel like they're filled with napalm and every step he takes is like the Little Mermaid walking on land; when JD's well and whole Cam doesn't have any qualms about showing how badly he hurts, but JD's hurting _too_ now, and Cam can just damn well suck it up and deal. Not like anything's going to change just because he gets some sympathy out of JD, and there's no use in both of them being doubly miserable; there are pains that get better when you share them and pains that just drag everyone around you down with them, and physical pain is usually the latter. So he takes a double dose of his painkillers (and usual dose _now_ is what a double dose was a year ago, but he's trying not to think about that) with a shot of whiskey chaser (and his doctor's been making noise about his liver enzyme functions lately but he's not thinking about that either) and lies with his eyes through breakfast, and he's _sure_ he's managed to get away with it. Until JD puts his coffee mug down with a little extra snap and says, "You think I can't see you're in pain, you're a fucking idiot," and Cam tries to find the words to explain that he's just trying not to make things worse, and the words don't come.

 

****

iii.

Cam doesn't say a word when JD disappears one afternoon, comes back a few hours later with the edges of a snow-white bandage peeking out over the top of his loose-waisted sweatpants. Should've been a sign in the first place. JD wears jeans or cargo shorts when he goes out, mostly -- says he likes having all the pockets to shove things into -- but that morning he'd pulled on a clean pair of the sweatpants he wears sometimes on his morning run, kissed Cam and said he'd be back later, and when he comes home that afternoon the gauze stares back at Cam, a mute witness, a testimonial. It's applied at the top of JD's ass, the point where hip slides into waist, on the right side of his back, and it's large enough to span from spine to side, the size of a postcard. It _is_ a postcard, letters sent from the wasteland of memory, the next mile marker on JD's journey back to self. Cam bites his tongue against the request for permission, the audacity of asking for the gift of vision. JD has told him the truth of what happened, JD has given him the _words_ for what JD was forced to endure, but words have grown easy, easier, for JD over the years they've spent together. JD's truest depths lie in symbols, they always have, and JD's symbols are clear like crystal in one light and utterly opaque in another, and Cam still doesn't trust himself to assign the right values. So Cam watches the gauze for the rest of the day, wondering at what new lines have been graved beneath his lover's skin. Whether it will be a diamond formed from unceasing pressure applied to coal or a pearl spun from unceasing irritation inside an oyster's shell, it is still a transformation of pain into beauty, formed from the crucible of this last horrible year, the last pieces of dross burning away and leaving only black ink, white skin.

 

****

iv.

Cam'd been _ready_ for their sex life to take a hit when JD came back, knew damn well what JD was going off to do and what kind of toll it was likely to collect on the highway to hell and beyond, but actually, that's one thing that hasn't changed. JD still reaches for him as often as he had before, still comes to Cam's outstretched hand with the same willing eagerness Cam's come to rely on. But it's different now, and it takes Cam a while to put his finger on why. Nothing obvious, nothing overt, nothing he can call JD on and make JD face, but now every time JD straddles his lap or pulls Cam down on top of him, there's a tiny half-second of defiance in the cant of his head and the curve of his neck, a challenge thrown into the jaws of his memories and his scars: _fuck you, this is_ mine _, you can't have it._

 

****

v.

JD sleeps curled in the darkness now, his back to Cam, his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them, a tiny ball of white skin and black ink standing out against the sea of subdued navies and burgundies and coppers of their soft jersey sheets. His sleep is broken by unsteady breathing, the soft murmurs of a man arguing with phantoms, the occasional hiss or moan of internal landscape given external voice, but he never unfolds himself, never strikes out or flails against whatever demons he's dreaming to life.

Cam spreads his hand flat against the space between JD's shoulderblades, over the sentences he can only half-read, and counts it a victory over the weeks and months that more and more often, when JD wakes from the touch, it's to roll towards him and not away.


End file.
